I shall start off saying I am working with windows Vista on this computer. I have XP on my lappy and my backroom computer that is not connected to the internet but is a backup in case this one goes on the fritz. A friend/acquaintance is getting a computer and the guru that I sent him to is recommending win 8.1 to him. He has never had a computer. I am the closest thing to a computer guru that he knows. Is 8.1 approximately like my droid phone (droid x2) with all the window expansion and access to the internet as such?I also have to upgrade another computer and wonder if win 7 is good enuff for it for the next 5 years or so. I dont want to waste his or my money. Any wisdom will be appreciated.

Win 8.1 would be the better choice for someone who doesn't regularly use older versions (like your friend), because it's so different that it's confusing for us long-time Win users. If you don't have a bunch of preconceived ideas of how it should work, it wouldn't seem all that odd. Win7 is good enough for the next 5 years or so for you. Personally, I have win7 on my desktop PC and laptop, win 8.1 on my Surface and on the desktop PCs I have to use at UW, and we just transitioned from XP to Win7 at work. And I started using PCs before Apple was invented (and mainframes/midis before that), so I've been along for the whole ride.

Windows 8.1 is fine. Just have him also buy (it's $5) and install Start8. It gives you a Start menu just like Windows 7 has and you don't have to deal with that stupid Metro UI Windows 8 crap that Microsoft is slowly working on getting rid of anyways since they realized after the fact from the massive blowback that it was a dumb idea.

Best of both worlds. The average user can't even tell the difference between Windows 7 and Windows 8 with Start8 installed on it.

I took a 1 minute class on Win 8/8.1 today. Win 8.1 is not that hard after all. I may be able to upgrade my computer and a couple other ones soon. The friend got his laptop and has it loaded with some programs and internet is available. I figured out that part all by my self. I got into trouble too with the computer but figured out where the problem was. I do need to review my outlook programming as he may need that or Gmail for email purposes. I am getting more partial to Gmail for mail as there is less advertisements. I think he can have an account in about 3 weeks. And with my limited knowledge, I am my friends' geek. I know more than they do and can protect them from internet programs. Oh and one more thing, I usually try to build a notebook for continuity. If I can remember what problems some people have and can give them solutions on paper, it gives me less to do at their locations. I need to do two of them books for both friends that are new to computers and now have them.

On 8.1, is there a restore point capability on that program? Got no disk drive to put a cd or dvd but do have usb ports. I am gonna see if my backpack cd writer dvd playa can go in it and make it work. I could not power it up yet...but will troubleshoot it. I think it was a power problem.

Well, there's System Restore, but that isn't for restoring an entire system; it tracks changes made to system files, programs you have installed, etc. and you can roll back to previous points where it made a backup. This can definitely fix a lot of things, but it's not a "system image" where you can restore the entire system with it.

And your computer has to actually boot up to make that available. That computer was stuck in a loop and would not boot up. Mine here had an issue this morning too. I had to system restore prior to where MICROSOFT updated. Took me about an hour to figure out how to make that happen with the system messing up. Does 8.1 have an F11 function on boot up?

It's F8, not F11, but yes. However, if your computer has an SSD, you can't really use it because it starts booting so quickly that even spamming the F8 key as rapidly as possible, it's essentially impossible to catch that short time interval where F8 gives you the custom startup options.

The easy way to get into the custom startup options if you have an SSD is turn your computer on, and once Windows starts booting, manually power the machine itself off by holding your power button for a few seconds. Turn it back on, and then do the same thing again. Windows will see that it failed to fully boot twice in a row, and give you the custom startup options automatically, at which point you can select safe mode or whatever.